Investments

Ok non car related post again. Instead of buying BBKs, I'm looking to pick up some shares.

Missed:
Citi at US$1. Now it's US$5+ (11-Feb $3.5)
DBS at $6.80. It went up to $25 and down to $16+ currently (12-Feb $13)
Gold at $700. It went up to $1800 and down to $1000 currently
STI at 1700. It went up to 3500 and down to 2800 currently
Oil went from 147 to 32 to 110+ and now it's at 36 currently (11-Feb 26)
Crazy swings in oil but now I'm watching Keppel at $6.37 and SembMarine at $1.73
14-Dec update: Keppel at 6.22, SembMarine at 1.65
14-Jan update: Keppel at 4.88, SembMarine at 1.39
18-Jan update: Keppel at 4.67, SembMarine at 1.30

Lost:
Swissco bought at $0.044, high of $0.061, suspended at $0.052
Triyard bought at $0.22, high of $0.26, sold at $0.11, suspended
Mum bought AEM at $1.19 and cut loss at $1.05, went on to $1.35 then $5.25

Hits:
COE at 18.4k. Rio bought at 3.7k depre.
COE at $2693. Jetta bought for 82.8k (7k depre) and sold for 82k (10k depre)
House at 308k. SBF was going for 380k! Market value of 565k. “Sold” for 525k.
FD2R bought at 11+k depre, sold at 14k
Mark X bought and sold at 10k depre
SembMarine bought at $1.7, sold at $1.81
Mapletree Greater China Commercial Trust IPO at $0.93, sold at $1.00
Wynn Macau bought at $7.80, sold at $21. High was 30
Mum bought AEM at $1.12 and sold at $1.24. See above miss thereafter.
Mum bought ThaiBev at $0.82 and sold at $0.83

Sold SCB at 61 after buying at 60.45, 54, 44.2, 39.2. High was 93.80

Sold ESR at 0.445 after buying at 0.25. High was 0.50

Hopefully more hits to come!

Geeky post

Nothing about cars this time. So SITEX just passed, dec holidays are round the corner. Happy days! We got ourselves an iPad mini 2 16gb for $399 and a Lenovo ideapad-100 core i5-5200u with 4gb ddr3 1333/1600 ram for $599. Apparently not upgradable, nor is the battery replaceable. Oh well let's see how long it lasts.

iPad mini 4 was going for $548 and core i5-5200u with 8gb ram was going for $699, core i7-5500u going for $799. As you can see, budget ruled. Haiz so poor nowadays. My diary excel got lost when I migrated laptops, heart pain. Something that I kept going every outing since 2007, and daily since 2012. Oh well was told it was lame anyway, so maybe I'll post here more often. Maybe.

Been sourcing for 2gb ddr2 800 laptop ram recently since nobody wanted to take in her laptop and the battery and charger and laptop were all good, excep that it was kinda slow. Hopefully the extra ram will help. I sold my toshiba satellite L645 core i3-370m with 4gb ddr3 1066 ram for a princely $100. When I bought it for $849 in 2010, with 2+3 year extended warranty for $233. Keyboard and charger changed once, battery bought once. Now the dvd drive keeps popping out, charger and battery going, and the not so occasional slowness is killing me. Bye! Her acer t4400 with 2gb ddr2 800 ram was bought for $599 with no problems. Grrr. But it's so slow I would have died if it was mine. I can't stand my gadgets being slow.

So I suddenly remember my old desktops with fondness. Compro Pentium II 233mhz with MMX back around 1997 with 32mb ram that cost $2k+ I think. And caused my poor results after sec 1. This was shared with my sis, who went on to buy a dell pentium 4 2.8ghz in 2003 for 1k+. I used it occasionally as I was in NS, and finally bought my very own desktop in 2004 before uni started for around $800. Pentium 4 2.8ghz with 256mb 533 ram. 1 new power supply, 1 new graphics card, upgrade of 17" CRT to 21.6" LCD screen, and upgrade to 768mb ram to 1gb ram later, the motherboard finally died. I bought a new power supply in vain. Laptops were $2k when I started uni. Too ex for a poor boy like me back then.

Ok enough of geeky stuff. Ciao

Around the world in 83 days

Trust me, poverty is not for the faint-hearted. Work hard, and play harder.

Took 3 days more than 'normal', but thankfully less than the 5 months budgeted.

small update on day 1

ok, so those are supposedly sports seats, but not M-sport.

and yes, i got bluetooth working nicely now.

no, i decided not to do the poser stripes

and yes, i have no $$ for brembos. ttyl

Living the dream

So sgcarmart sent me an alert for a n54b30, and I scrambled to have Alan list my mark x for 10k depreciation. It was gone in a jiffy (actually an agonizing few days), and I got my dream ride in a flash. Perfect timing, orchestrated beautifully by Alan. I cannot thank him enough. Super cheap insurance to boot.

What I thought was a super cheap deal turned out to be merely a cheap deal. But car condition was superb, and even ok-ed by Cj. MTL! Much cheaper than the red jan-08 one I missed, but this one has a few nice bits, though it doesn't have a few nice bits too. At least it isn't problematic like the red one probably is.

Mark x was slightly sluggish due to the weight. Smooth engine and gearbox though. No complaints though 200k service was coming up. Having to do major servicing just before scrapping will be such a huge waste. Thankfully I didn't buy the GS BBK in the end, and I dekitted my vossen rims. Alternator was still working, in fact the belts and/or pulleys were starting to mask the alternator. I'm still getting used to the n54 but the insane power and torque reminded me of my first and only PML visit, and also the feel of the jetta after the rio.

Presenting the e90 335 m-sport light edition:

Sparkling graphite exterior on Dakota grey interior. I love the black headliner. I didn't really like the beige interior in the mark x. And the sparkling graphite reminded me of my platinum grey jetta.

M-sport steering wheel
M-sport door sills
M-sport front bumper
M-sport rear bumper
M-sport suspension (which is dekitted)

I love the seats, though I dun know if they are different from the usual e90s. Better than the jetta ones, though not exactly the semi buckets of the FD2R.

Light edition cos:
No iDrive. No GPS and reverse camera! I'm trying to get the Bluetooth to work again though.
No electric memory seats
No xenons
No sunroof
No roof and bootlid spoilers. Been there done that.

Performance:
JB4
Burger Motorsports Dual Cone Intake
Bastuck catback. Nowhere as loud as the FX60RS.
KW V2. Nowhere as stiff as the FD2R.
SuperPro front control arms
Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 2 235/35 and 265/30. Apparently used for 20k.
DBA slotted rotors 348x30 and 336x22
Cool Carbon pads
Goodridge SSBH
Forge diverter valve
Evolution Racewerks diverter valve charge pipe
-
Brembo 18Z 380x34mm

Cosmetic:
Rays Homura 2x7 5x120 ET36 19x8.5 and 19x9.5
CF front and rear badges. Numbers debadged.
Black front kidney grilles
Black window sills
Infratint
-
Rear left brake bulb
Front passenger door handles, boot hydraulics
3A car mats
Front passenger door lock

Maintenance:
116.6k Bardahl SynPulsar-N 5w40, Pentosin CHF11S PSF, Bardahl DOT4, Millers DOT4
121k Nexen N Fera SU1 235/35 R19
121k Amaron 74Ah battery, front driver indicator light housing

Still thinking of whether to do the poser M kidney grille stripes. And surprisingly no Brembo GT. No $ for that though. Let me get used to the car first. Awesome driver position and heavy steering FTW.

CNY 2015

so i got my mark x boot emblem installed by alan, when fixing up the loose central console "leather" and the loose rear left passenger door handle. i got edwin to install the mark x steering wheel emblem, indeed a lot of work, not for the faint-hearted.

i'll probably give up the GS300 BBK idea, the vossen rims won't clear. note to self: buy rims with spokes that are flush to the exterior right from the hub. and it'll be a waste anyway, with 1 year 8 months to go. time flies. i'll just stomp on the brakes, they've worked a couple of times already. i definitely wont lower this car, still enjoying the ride. but ah hup says that the starter/alternator and pulley belts are due. the 152k 328 is sold... still undecided on what to get for SR5. lets see how things go. hopefully 2015 is a better year. it should. it will. it must. wishing everyone a prosperous new year!